The Runner's Guide to a Healthy Core: How to Strengthen the Engine That Powers Your Running

By Daniel J. Frey and Chris Solinsky

Every runner knows that you need more than just sturdy legs to achieve personal best performances and to stay injury-free. To reach your optimal running potential, you need a strong and healthy core. Not only will having proper core strength give you toned abs and thighs, but it will also ensure that you maintain good form as your fatigue mounts, and ultimately will decrease your chances of succumbing to devastating injury. In The Runner’s Guide to a Healthy Core , celebrated orthopedic and champion runner Daniel Frey provides all the essential knowledge that is needed for achieving ideal core strength. Key pieces of information include:

A detailed description of how core functions when we run
Illustrations of key core stretches
Essential core strengthening exercies
A step-by-step guide to correct breathing while running
A catalog of the bestand worstfoods for maintaining a runner’s core
Home remedies to ensure that soreness doesn’t become injury
And dozens more professionally endorsed tips and tactics!

Complete with dozens of color photographs and charts, The Runner’s Guide to a Healthy Core contains all you’ll ever need to gain and sustain a strong and sturdy core strength. It’s a must-have for every runner looking to clock faster times and stay healthy and injury-free.

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• Language: English
• Publisher: Skyhorse
• Release date: Nov 15, 2016
• ISBN: 9781510711396

Book preview

Preface

Running is more popular than ever in the United States. According to the National Sporting Goods Association, more then nine million Americans run 110 or more days per year. Another nineteen million run between twenty-five and 109 days per year. These numbers have continued to climb annually in recent years, as more people recognize how convenient, effective, and rewarding a regular running program can be.

Unfortunately, many of these runners will get injured. Depending on what study you believe, every year anywhere from 25 percent to 80 percent of runners suffer an injury that’s significant enough to cut into the quantity and/or quality of their training.

There are many reasons that runners get injured, but underlying almost all of them is asking the body to take on more repetitive strain than it’s currently capable of handling. This idea is perhaps easy to accept if you picture a new runner who is overweight and has been sedentary for years. Such a person, you might say, is running to get fit, but doesn’t have a body that’s yet fit to run. Their excess weight places more stress on their joints when they run, and their years of inactivity will likely mean they lack the general strength to hold good form when they run.

What might not be as easy to accept is that longtime runners, even the fittest and leanest, may be just as susceptible to injury, and for a similar reason—they don’t have the strength to maintain good mechanics throughout their runs. The faster and longer they run, the more likely it is that their form will falter, and the more likely it is that they’ll eventually develop an injury.

The Core of the Matter

Most runners don’t have adequate control of their core musculature. In my practice as a physical therapist, I see it again and again when working with runners—there is weakness somewhere between the abs and hips that sets someone up for an injury in any number of places in the body.

The lack of a strong, healthy core is often made worse by two aspects of modern life. First, many runners spend most of their non-running hours sitting, whether in front of a computer or in a car. Doing so can lead to weakness and postural habits that affect how they run. Second, people feel ever busier. It’s common to throw on our running shoes and head out the door without an adequate warm-up, and then after the run to almost instantly get back to the rest of our lives. We don’t necessarily consider exercises that build a better running body to be an integral part of a running program.

The fact of the matter is simple: healthy running is deeply rooted in a strong, stable core. In this book, we’ll dive deep into what your core truly is. (It’s a lot more than having six-pack abs.) We’ll see how your core functions when you run. This understanding will show you how essential a healthy core is to your running.

After learning about the runner’s core in general, we’ll focus on your core specifically. You’ll learn how to assess your core for areas of both strength and, even more important, weakness. These weaknesses will become some of the highlights of your fundamental conditioning in the future.

We’ll also cover flexibility and soft-tissue mobility in detail, along with a progression of hip strengthening and core stabilization. Finally, we’ll look in depth at the relationship between your core and more efficient running mechanics. You’ll learn why working to improve your form is as at least as important in running as it is in sports such as skiing or golf, in which people accept the benefits of focusing on technique.

With a good understanding in these areas, you’ll be able to design a core program specific to your needs to make you a better runner.

About the Author

I understand running well, but more importantly, I get runners because I’ve been one almost all of my life. At the suggestion of my physical education teacher, I ran my first road race, a one-mile race held on the city streets of the small Pennsylvania city where I grew up, when I was in third grade. I remember this race well. After lining up in basketball sneakers, I was the odd man out. Luckily, I finished better than I looked with a sub-6:00 mile.

More importantly, I caught the running bug. I continued to run and race throughout high school and went on to compete at the Division I level in cross country and indoor and outdoor track at the University of Delaware. Some of my best times there were 4:05 for 1500 meters and 26:37 for an 8-kilometer cross country course. Since college, I’ve competed on the track, trails, and roads at distances up to the ultramarathon. I’ve also run pushing not one, but both of my amazing sons in a stroller, along with two dogs by my side. Some of these runs were crazy, but you do what you have to do to get out. Aside from competition, running is a staple in my life to manage everyday stress and maintain positive energy. Needless to say, I love running.

I knew from a young age that I wanted to be able to apply my love of running to my career. I first studied exercise physiology, and double-minored in strength and conditioning and biology at the University of Delaware. I then earned my Doctor of Physical Therapy degree from the University of New England, in Portland, Maine. I now live and work in the Portland area and am lucky to be in such an active place, as I get to work with runners every day in my practice.

Take some time and digest what you learn about your core as you read this book. My challenge to you: apply one piece of what you read here to every run that you go on. As a runner, you know how small gains can build over time to produce great results. Change is not easy but is often necessary to refine movement. With a good understanding of your core and a well-rounded plan in place, you’ll be able to run more efficiently and with less risk for injury.

Chapter 1

What Is the Core?

If I were to ask you what the core of an apple is, what would you say? If you are like most people, then you’d respond that it’s the middle of the apple—the part that has the seeds, stem, and the pieces you don’t eat. Your answer would likely identify multiple components.

But if I were to ask you what the core of your body is, you might well answer my abs.

It’s true that your abs (short for rectus abdominis) are a significant component of your core. However, if we think about your body as an apple, it makes sense that there should be stuff on the bottom, or the base, of the apple; something in the middle, like the seeds; and something on the top, the stem.

In other words, the core is everything in the middle of your body. Instead of just a good-looking set of six-pack abs, the core is a complex part of your anatomy that is centered in the middle of your body. It’s essential that you understand the basic anatomy, bones, and soft tissue that make up your core so that you can better understand how this relates to running. With this knowledge, you will gain a better understanding of proper technique as it relates to conditioning as well as running mechanics, and how to improve both.

Another Way to Visualize the Core

To understand your core in more detail, picture a box of running shoes. The anatomy of this is fairly simple: two sides, a front and a back, a bottom, a top (often connected with a hinge) and, of course, the shoes inside of the box. (One thing missing from this description is the air the inside the box. In Chapter 6, we’ll look in depth at why air and, by extension, breathing is such a vital component to core health and performance.)

First, picture the bones that make up your core. There’s the pelvic girdle, which is made up of two large bones on the side connected through a wedge-shaped sacrum on the back. Extending north off of the sacrum is a series of bones known as vertebrae. There are five in the lumbar section, or lower back, and twelve in the thoracic spine, which is where the ribs originate. The vertebrae articulate through facet joints on the back portion of the bone. There are two joints on the upper-back portion of this and two joints on the lower-back portion.

Between the larger components of each vertebra is an intervertebral disc. This disc is similar to a jelly donut. On the outer portion there’s a fibrous, dough-like portion, and on the inside is a jelly-like substance. The ribs wrap around to the front of the body to connect to the chest bone or sternum. Collectively, the thoracic spine, ribs, and sternum are known as the thorax.

For our purpose here, I will also mention the femurs, which are the large thigh bones. These attach to each half of the pelvis through a ball-and-socket joint.

That covers the bones of your core. Now we need to examine the more complex soft-tissue anatomy that binds this all together.

Soft Tissue of the Core

Let’s revisit the shoebox analogy and relate this to the softer tissues that make up the core. We’ll start with the area that people are most familiar with, the front of the box. As we relate the front of the box to the human core, it’s made up of the abdominal wall.

The abdominal wall has multiple layers that overlap throughout your core. The rectus abdominis, or what you see in the famous six-pack abs, is the primary layer in the front. It extends from the sternum to the pubic bones. An isolated contraction of the rectus abdominis would cause your body to hinge forward, as in a sit-up.

We should also make note of the front of the hips as part of the front side of the box. The main group of muscles found here is the iliopsoas, which are more commonly called the hip flexors. This is a group of three muscles that originate off the lumbar spine and back of the pelvis and extend forward of the hip to attach on the upper inside portion of the femur. A contraction of your iliopsoas would either flex your hip, raising your knee off the ground, or pull your spine forward, similar to a sit-up.

Because the hips are an integral piece of the core, let’s further examine the other muscles attaching to the pelvis. Just outside of the iliopsoas group lies the tensor fascia latae, or TFL for short. This is a small muscle that attaches to the front of the pelvis, just below the little point that you feel on your hip. It extends into a long, thin tendonous band known as the iliotibial band, which most runners think of only in terms of injury. It runs the length of the outer thigh and attaches just below the knee. The IT band serves to move the thigh outward from the body.

As we move to the inside of the TFL, one of the four quadriceps muscles, called the rectus femoris, is found. We will highlight this muscle because it is the only quadriceps muscle that crosses the hip and attaches on the pelvis. The rectus femoris runs from the front of the hip and extends down to the knee, attaching through the knee cap (patella) to tendon and then eventually to one of the shin bones, the tibia. Like many muscles, it has a dual function; in this case, it’s to flex the hip or to extend the knee.

Finally, there are a few muscles on the inner portion of the front of the hip to mention. These muscles originate off of the pubic bones, which is where the pelvis adjoins in the front. First is the adductor group, which is comprised of the adductor magnus, adductor minimus, and adductor longus. These three work together to pull the thigh inward and also help to extend the thigh behind. Two other muscles, the pectineus and the gracilis, have a similar function. They also originate off of the pubic bone and the part of the bone just behind this, and then attach on the thigh. As you can see, the front of the core is quite complex.

Base of the Core

Now let’s look at the base of the shoebox. This area is mostly bony, made up by the pelvic girdle. This group of bones resembles a bowl with a big hole in the middle. It’s important here to note the pelvic floor, a patchwork of multiple smaller muscles that covers this opening in the pelvis. These muscles are essential in controlling bowel and bladder functions as well as maintaining support for the visceral organs that lie above.

Looking at the sides of the shoebox, we come back to the abdominal wall. Earlier we saw the abdominal wall has layers; these layers are more abundant here than in the front of the core. There are three muscles to consider here. The innermost is the transversus abdominis, or TA; the middle is known as the internal oblique; and the outermost is the external oblique.

The TA can be best visualized as a human back belt. It extends from the lumbar spine, wraps around the sides of the abdomen and connects in the front. When the TA contracts, it compresses circumferentially inward. The obliques have a similar path to the TA but differ in that their fibers overlap in a crisscrossing fashion. They are primarily known to rotate the midsection in a twisting fashion.

Just as we explored the front of the hips in relation to the front of the box, let’s look at the outer hips in relation to the sides of the box. The muscles that are acting here originate from the pelvis as well as the sacrum. This area starts to blend closely with the back of the box; for ease of understanding we’ll consider them part of the